Editor's Note

The Charge

Seriously…not for kids.

Opening Statement

Round Three of gratuitous violence perpetrated on cute cartoon animals brings
more of the same: blood, decapitations, impalements and an eclectic selection of
other killing techniques I didn't even know existed.

Facts of the Case

Happy Tree Friends follows the misadventures of a group of mute,
animated woodland creatures who find themselves in varying degrees of pain and
torment. Episodes run seven minutes each. Volume Three welcomes nine more
installments from Season 1.

The Evidence

• "A Hole Lotta Love" A twisted spin on the old
young-kid-falls-down-a-well gag, Cub takes a dive and Pup teams up with Sniffles
to build a super burrowing device, which immediately slaughters anyone within 10
feet of its diabolical drill.

• "Mime to Five" To buy a unicycle, Mime works an
assortment of jobs that don't mesh well with his pantomime tendencies. Animals
die as a result.

• "Blast from the Past" Sniffles travels in time
to prevent Lumpy and his pals from dying messy deaths at the playground, yet
can't seem to keep them alive. This is easily the cleverest episode of the
batch.

• "Chew Said a Mouthful" Nutty visits the dentist
and has his jaw wired shut. But his craving for a delicious jawbreaker leads to
chaos and death and Lumpy playing golf with an eyeball.

Wow, these guys really know how to capitalize on a premise. As I've said
repeatedly in my reviews for the previous two volumes, Happy Tree Friends
is a one-gag enterprise, the entire series built on how creatively destroy
saccharine Disney cast-offs. To that end, I completely yield all necessary
credit and accolades to the wackos behind this endeavor: they are by the finest
animators of grotesque cartoon violence I've seen to date (and please refrain
from e-mailing me links to anime that will give me nightmares, thanks).

The problem is, the gimmick can grow tired. Episodes tend to bleed (har)
into each other and the over-the-top violence blurs together, leaving only the
truly distasteful bits remaining memorable. The award for Most @#$%-ed Up
gag on this series? The poor bastard that slides down a banister and over a row
of nails and gets ripped to pieces in "Home is Where the Hurt Is."
Yikes.

The show's humor lies on the morbid scenarios cooked up by the writers and
if watching adorable bunny rabbits getting disemboweled sounds like good times
to you, then you'll enjoy the mayhem Happy Tree Friends offers. And I
don't mean to say that in a pretentious manner. I fondly recall the moronic
comics me and my pals did during eighth-grade earth science class to make each
other laugh, and—this is probably the best compliment I can
offer—the show manages to tickle that rarely-used humor neuron that's been
shut down since those days.

What else you may think about the series, it is very well-executed (har
har). The Flash animation is bright colorful and obscene when it needs to be;
the style fits the juxtaposition of nauseatingly cute and Clive Barker-like
horrendous that drives the humor. On DVD, the transfer is strong. Displayed in
full frame, the picture quality is strong and the colors sharp. The 5.1 Dolby
Digital audio is a nice addition.

Extras are leaner on this volume. Storyboards are available for all episodes
and the voice actors give some brief interviews. Also, a three-minute montage of
violence from the previous episodes is a handy tool for cartoon-murderin'
satiation on the quick. Then there's the commentary track, delivered on all the
episodes by creator Kenn Navarro, writer Ken Pontac and producer David Ichioka.
These guys obviously dig their creation and that's great, but the constant
laughing at their own jokes and gags came across as tacky. A supremely annoying
commentary track.

Closing Statement

I can try to put on a sour face and lecture about the flagging popular
culture that gives rise to sick weirdness like Happy Tree Friends, but
then I'd be a hypocritical a-hole. This DVD made me laugh.